RSA refuses to follow NU rate hike

In response to Norwich Union's decision to raise domestic property insurance premiums by an average of 10% from next week Royal & Sun Alliance stated: "Our approach is to charge the right price to reflect each customer's individual property and circumstances and through the development of our sophisticated flood risk mapping technology we are able to understand the risk of flooding at an individual address level. The concept of blanket price increases does not flow from this approach."

"We look at weather claims over a long time period and one bad year doesn't necessarily mean premiums need to rise the following year.

"While the scale of this year's flooding is unprecedented we do expect flood events to occur and price accordingly. We have our own unilateral process for setting prices by reference to our own internal technical pricing models and based on a number of factors. It is the unique combination of these factors that determines the price a customer will pay."